Ideally, electrical connections for removable or plug-in electrical components should be both reliable and easy to make, i.e., the component should be simple to connect and to separate from an electrical power source. This is particularly true of electrically-powered lamps and is one of the reasons that the Edison screw socket and the so-called bayonet socket have been widely tolerated for many decades despite obvious shortcomings.
Simple screwing-in and unscrewing have been the routine procedures for connecting and disconnecting such devices (e.g., the Edison socket). Even the more complicated process used to mount and dismount components having bayonet sockets, in which an axial pressure must first be exerted in order to be able to release a lamp from its socket with a short rotary movement, has become accepted because of better vibration safety.
The problem with the design of these sockets is that the electrical contacts in such sockets present a potentially life-threatening shock hazzard if incidentally touched during insertion and removal of electrical lamps. Notwithstanding these inherent defects, these socket designs have been tolerated worldwide by responsible regulating agencies.
Thus, there is the need for a new lamp base and socket system with improved safety characteristics which is capable of meeting established requirements of international testing and regulating authorities (e.g., Underwriters Laboratories in the United States). Designs of such lamp base and socket systems which incorporate plug pins on the base of the lamps have been described in my co-pending U.S. patent applications Ser. No. 08/831,903, filed Apr. 2, 1997, and Ser. No. 08/985,348 filed Dec. 4, 1997, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein. As described in the above-referenced documents, pins on the base of electric lamps mate with recesses or holes in the base of electrical sockets. Both the base of the lamps and the interior of the sockets can be profiled with sloping surfaces and detents in order to guide the lamp pins into the proper position and to firmly secure the lamps within the lamp socket.